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A Lifetime of Digging
Yields Centuries of Treasures

By

Frederika Randall

Updated June 4, 1999 12:01 a.m. ET

Ischia, Italy

A few passengers on the early morning hydrofoil carry local shopping bags, but the rest of us are mostly well-heeled German- and English-speakers. On the map the little island of Ischia looks like an extension of Naples, but the streets are full of Northern Europeans, not Southern Italians. I squint up at the hills as we make port, trying to guess how this pleasure isle of hot springs and plush spa hotels might once have looked to other, more distant, forestieri , or foreigners. To such people as the Homeric...